Results are out! Which agencies passed HP’s diversity test?

Currently, HP agencies represent more than US$2 billion in revenue for the company, employing around 30,000 people, the report said. This included partners such as BBDO Worldwide, Fred & Farid, gyro, PHD and Edelman. While all agency partners succeeded in improving women representation, the agency scorecard released by HP added that more could still be done in ethnic minority representation.

According to the scorecard results, all agencies exceeded the goal for women representation on HP account teams by over 5%. This translates to 61% of HP’s worldwide agency account teams consisting of women. All agencies also exceeded the goal for women in senior roles by 4%, which results in 51% of HP’s agency account teams having women in senior roles.

HP’s two lead creative agencies also met targets for women in creative leadership. BBDO went from 0% to 40% and Fred & Farid went from 0% to 55%. However, the scorecard reported that there is still opportunity for improvement overall.

Despite the improvements in female representation, the report added that work remains in bolstering representation among minorities in the United States. Although three out of five agencies (BBDO Worldwide, Fred & Farid and PHD) saw a positive, upward trend in minority representation, minority representation was still below target for 60% of HP’s global agencies. On an overall note, the report added that 8% of all employee growth across HP’s global agencies year-over-year was minorities. More than 15 new programs also fuelled the agencies’ diversity progress including recruiting processes, internal events and community outreach.

Here is how HP’s agencies performed individually on the diversity challenge:

New challenges to be issued

According to the press statement, HP is also introducing a slew of initiatives to further drive diversity and inclusion in the global marketing industry. It will issue a new 2018 global agency challenge to help agency partners define specific underrepresented groups by country. This will also help clear objectives, measurements and plans to increase diverse talent on HP business. It will also award a grant to ADCOLOR to help fund a professional development solution for diverse talent focused on growing young talent in creative industries.

To maintain its progress in female representation, the company will also award a grant which will fund a 3% conference livestream to support efforts to continue to advance opportunities for women in marketing and creative industries. It will also renew its sponsorship for Free the Bid, which works to increase women in director’s chairs and is continuing to fund efforts to give women directors equal opportunities to bid on commercial jobs in the global advertising industry. Lucio said:

“Advancing diversity is a business imperative. It fuels our reinvention journey, helping drive transformation in marketing and beyond. HP is a stronger brand and better company because of it. We are proud of our agencies who took on this challenge. They’ve made great progress,” Antonio Lucio (pictured), global chief marketing & communication officer at HP, said.

Last year, Lucio issued a letter to the company’s agencies calling for more diversity in leadership roles. According to the letter shared with Marketing, Lucio wanted formal plans to be created in the next 30 days for agency partners to diversify their teams. Agencies had to establish 2017 targets and track those targets by measuring the representation of women and US minorities in creative and leadership positions. These were for the account teams supporting the HP business.